The Webster’s Laure Hériard Dubreuil Expands Into Home Goods

Mieke Ten Have

04.25.2019

Photography by Camilo Rios

“Every piece has its own identity and mixing them all together makes my own identity,” says Laure Hériard Dubreuil of the maxim that underpins her approach at The Webster, the multi-brand, multi-city fashion retailer she founded in Miami in 2009. Known for her trend-setting cultivation of nascent talent and electric élan for mixing pattern, texture, and vivid color, Hériard Dubreuil is now applying her irreverent eye to a home line, launching this spring.

The move is a natural extension of the style arbiter’s vision for The Webster. “I designed the stores as my home and people were always asking to buy the decor pieces; I had to embrace the category,” says Hériard Dubreuil. It isn’t her first foray into homeware. In 2017, she collaborated with design gallerist Melanie Courbet on a line of lush, hand-painted Lobmeyr glasses depicting tropical flora and fauna for the launch of the New York Webster. That experience lingered with her, and at the suggestion of her friend Pierre Hardy, she met Stéphane Parmentier, a designer who applies his gestural eye to both interiors and furniture design.

“It was like love at first sight. Pierre was right: Stéphane and I share so much and an interesting dialogue formed around our past experiences,” remembers Hériard Dubreuil, who worked at Balenciaga under Nicolas Ghesquière and then at YSL under Stefano Pilati. Parmentier similarly had a background in fashion before transitioning into interiors, and also has a strong understanding of the retail landscape. The two began comparing reference points and felt there was a sense of trepidation in the American market to contrast design styles with confidence. “Instead of doing full looks, I mix things together—from table settings to furniture. I think this mix is the strong added value for our friends, family and audience.”

The Webster Home collection spans eras, genres, and styles; some of Hériard Dubreuil’s favorite pieces are those of master glassblower Laurence Brabant. “There is poetry in her work. It is subtle and romantic, but deceptively strong and dishwasher safe. She doesn’t make museum pieces, but her works are unique and beautiful and can be used in everyday life,” she says. Other highlights include battery-charged lamps in gold or black, which she envisions living just as easily on an al fresco dinner table in Miami or the Hamptons, or on an office desk. There are items by design icons, too, like the line of trays Hériard Dubreuil commissioned Gaetano Pesce, with whom she has worked before, to create for the collection. “Special pieces by him are part of the DNA of The Webster,” she says.

For Hériard Dubreuil, it is about weaving one’s own narrative through a collection of objects and furniture that resonates. “I love having pieces in my home that remind me of a trip or a happy memory, or stimulate me visually or intellectually. That’s what we’re trying to reproduce.”